The hidden cost of a worker profile: Why contractors spend $200+ before an interview even happens
In today’s hyper-competitive construction labor market, access to skilled, qualified craft workers is everything. But what’s often overlooked is the true cost contractors incur just to collect the basic information needed to evaluate a potential hire, even before an interview happens.
At Skillit, we’ve been working with AI tools to break down the time and money it actually takes to replicate the depth of a Skillit profile using traditional methods. The results are astounding.
What it really costs to build a viable worker profile
Let’s assume you’re a contractor trying to fill skilled labor roles through traditional job boards, referrals, or staffing agencies. Here’s what you typically need to get a qualified candidate to the interview stage:
Cost breakdown (per candidate profile):
Job board/ad spend to get a viable applicant: $60–$120
Recruiter labor (60–75 min @ ~$40/hr): $40–$50
Contact verification tools (email, phone validation): $10–$15
Skills assessments & cert verification (OSHA, NCCER, etc.): $40–$90
Misc. screening (travel prefs, physical requirements, etc.): $15–$20
Total equivalent cost: ~$165–$295 per candidate profile
And this doesn’t include background checks, drug testing, or the internal time cost for HR or hiring managers to coordinate next steps.
That’s just to assemble the data
Even if you’re willing to spend $200+ per candidate, you’re still left chasing down missing pieces:
Certifications that may or may not be current
Trade-specific experience across multiple projects
Willingness to travel or work per diem
Communication reliability (phone? SMS? email?)
Basic contact info that’s often outdated or missing
The worst part on top of swallowing the $200+ for basic, necessary information for all candidates, collecting this information all happens over days or even weeks of chasing, back-and-forth and potential ghosting. Recruiters spend hours emailing, calling, following up, and often starting over when a candidate ghosts or turns out to be unqualified.
This is the hidden tax of hiring skilled labor today. It’s killing hiring velocity.
How Skillit collapses the $200 workflow into one profile
A Skillit profile consolidates all of this fragmented information into a single, structured format:
Verified skills and certifications (OSHA, NCCER, lift/fall protection, etc.)
Work history, project types, and equipment experience
Real-time contact info with communication preferences
Willingness to travel, per diem preference, and availability
Pre-screening answers to custom job-specific questions
Because Skillit is built for construction, each candidate is guided through a craft-specific onboarding flow that captures exactly what you need to know with zero guesswork.
And with the recent launch of Skillit’s pre-screening interview questions, you can now get even deeper insight into a worker’s qualifications and fit before spending a second on outreach and is all handled by our best-in-class AI recruiting assistant that will do the painful chasing for you. It’s like having your first screening call at the click of a button, without picking up the phone.
Instant access, instant ROI
Skillit customers tell us this every week: “You’ve already done 80% of the work we’d normally do over two weeks before we even reach out.”
With 175,000+ verified workers already in the Skillit platform and growing daily, you don’t have to start from scratch. You can filter by trade, certification, availability, geography, specific skills and dozens of other attributes so you can get the results you want instantly.
The difference?
Skillit profile = ~$0 incremental cost
Traditional profile = ~$200+ per candidate + time drag
Multiply that across 50–100 roles per month, and you’re looking at tens of thousands in monthly savings, not to mention the time savings for every recruiter.
